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How to Draw a Hand

January 22, 2018

The human hand is very expressive and has the ability to share feelings of happiness, excitement, fear, anger, and sadness. As you create your next illustration and make your way to drawing hands, it’s important to capture your character’s personality and emotions through hand gestures. Instead of drawing your character’s hands in their pockets or behind their backs, follow along as we go through each step of Vincent Davis‘ lesson plan on how to draw hands!

Drawing a Hand Palm Down

We’ve broken down the step-by-step process you’ll need to know as you create your own hand model. You’ll need a piece of paper (or foam) of your color choice, a pencil, and a ruler.

Step 1

Sketch lightly a triangular shape. We will call this the base, which should always be drawn first.

Step 2

Sketch the thumb. Start from the top of the base and work your way down to the bottom. Give the thumb a slight bend to make it look like an actual thumb, and not just a finger!

Step 3

Leave a space between the thumb and remaining fingers. This is the most common mistake when drawing a hand, so make sure to keep the thumb separate from the rest of the fingers.

Step 4

Next, add the fingers to your hand. Sketch each finger individually in size order, starting from the bottom to the top (giving each finger a slight bend).

Step 5

Now, erase the base.To do this, erase the triangular shape you began with. What you have left is a complete cartoon hand!

Drawing a Hand Palm Up

Step 1

Sketch the triangular base of your hand with a pencil.

Step 2

Draw the thumb. This time the thumb is on the outside and is being connected to the palm line. This line will look like a “C”.

Step 3

Next, draw each finger and be sure to leave a space before reaching the thumb, as shown below.

Step 4

Erase the triangular base initially drawn.

Step 5

Add palm lines to the interior of your hand to give your hand a realistic look.

Depending on the form of the hand you’re looking to create, the way to draw fingers will change. If you need a bit of inspiration to do this, check out these examples we’ve compiled as reference:

Finger Pointing

Thumbs Up

Make a Fist

Peace Sign and Palms Down

Now that you have mastered drawing a hand from scratch, do you feel up for another Fazzino Art Lesson? Get creative in the classroom with us!